Body shaking
Mind creeping
Eyes crossing
Fatigue settling
Awareness diminishing
Will to live fleeting.

She asks me, "What can I get you?"
I respond, "Biggest size you've got- extra everything."
She asks me, "Is that all for you miss?"
I say, "Make that two."

I hand over my life savings eagerly,
thinking I need my fix and I need it now.

My legs shuffle forward
Lacking energy to lift themselves off the ground.

My body is humming with excitement,
Eagerness cutting through my brain,
reminding me to keep my composure until the time is right.

And then I hear it
Three syllables ringing out above the chattering.
Two large items places on the table with my name branding it like a priced possession.

My heart rate peaks.
My eyes look like two saucers about to launch off my face.
A sheen of sweat covers my body.
Saliva fills my mouth,
making my need to indulge elevated above all reason.

My legs regain their composure in a burst of energy
I dart through the crowd,
pushing and growling and hissing at everyone that stands in my way.

Until my hands wrap around the cold circumference.

My frenzied hands stir and stir and then...
Bliss.

The taste of caramel and espresso and sweet life fill my mouth and suddenly I feel a jolt.

Energy traveling down my throat, through my veins.
Jump starting my heart and rewiring my brain.

My eyes open for the first time all day
My lips lift into a smile.

I turn around and see the terrified expressions of the entire store.

I look down and for the first time realize-
My shirt is on backwards
My hair is half curled
One sandal and one tennis shoe adorn my feet.

"Oh well," I think.
Everyone knows not to mess with me before I've had my Caramel Macchiato.

He told me,
"let me read your fortune."

He brought out a mammoth tome with pages so weathered they stuck together like glue.

Yellow pages fanned out,
not held back from the binding that had already shed it like a second skin.

He said, "let me waken it up."
And ran his hands through the stiff pages,
making the book creak in protest.

He then handed it to me and told me to pick a page
I breathed in the antiquated smell and slid my thumb over the pages.
Until I landed on the one page out of the thousands that spoke out to me.

And he began to read.
It was about Newtons law of gravity.
One day he was sitting by a tree and saw an apple fall to the ground.
He noticed that something had to be pulling it down.
That the invisible force that weighs on our shoulders and keeps our feet planted firmly to the ground works on all things.

And Newton began to wonder
He wondered what made the apple ever be able to hang so high off of the ground
Even though there was always an invisible force waiting to yank you down to rock bottom.

And he realized that for gravity to exist you had to have levitation.
That you had to rise above the forces of nature and hang suspended,
rising higher and higher,
past your potential,
before the forces of gravity pull you back down to reality.

He looks into my eyes
and I see happiness.

I see walks on the beach
Rooftop views
Talks over coffee
Skinny dips and longboard slips.

I look into his eyes
and I find peace.

Peace in a world full of unanswered questions
Peace every moment we breath the same air
Or I think of his smile,
his dimples lifting up my world.

He looks into my eyes and I see love.
Love in its purest, most unrelenting form.

Love that mends my broken parts
and strengthens in my heart with every beat.

Love that covers me in a warm blanket
and makes me feel content.

Love that makes my toes curl
and my lips part
And brings perfection to my imperfect world.

His love is everything I need and all that I desire.
I can't wait for our tomorrows
of river walks, and philosophical talks.
Road trips and snowboard tricks
Puppy dates and frisbee games
Soft lips and a lingering kiss

And to be in my favorite place in the world.
In his arms with his love wrapping around me in a warm embrace.

Cuddled under a blanketed canopy,
riddled with holes making a makeshift starlit sky
Is a greasy little man named Poe.

He breathes in the stench of the city
Of the trash cans and alley cat ****.

He hears the life around him.
The beeping of passing cars
The rattle of the subway tearing through the sky
Shouts of the stumbling drunks
The whistle for a taxi
And the melodic laughter of old friends.

And he breathes.
He breathes in the frigid air around him and feels it travel through his body.
It freezes his nose, shakes his lungs
brings goose bumps to his limbs
and drives his body to shutter and shake.

And he thinks.
He thinks of a warm bath
A lit candle
A blanketed duvet
A full stomach
brushed teeth
a soft pillow
and the warm touch of a loved one.

He dreams of better places and better times.
Of a house with a roof
And a morning with a purpose.

These dreams take him to a faraway place.
And camouflage the reality of his life.

These dreams keep his heart beating
His lungs pumping
And the slightest smile to his weathered lips.

In an alley, under a blanket of misfit stars
Lays a man named Poe.

He's a vagabond.
He's a dreamer.
He's a surviver.

We run like telephone poles in the night
Darting through trees
Snaking through the sky

Reaching for the moon on our long wooden legs
Oh, how glorious we are with the moonlight glistening off of us

Beating with power
Pulsing with electricity
Arching through the air and lighting up the world around us.

Chasing an impossible dream to be fulfilled

To make that spark,
To rope in the magic suspended in the space around us.
And light the match.

That cultivates our spirit
Grounds our hopes
Cements them in the earth and
Buries them in the deep rich soil

Never to be questioned or second guessed

Oh how we grasp the air,
desperate to grab handfuls of somethings and turn them into everything
And change the world with the love and positivity we create.

How we long for the semblance of perfection amount the modern robots that surround us, rehearsing their phrases and learning the script of movie stars and socialites.
Rewriting their picturesque lives into our own realities.

And those people suspended higher then the rest of us-
constantly reminding us to jump higher,
Duck lower
Smile wider
Dip Deeper
Explore more
Love harder
Dance better
Filter everything
Raise heels
Tighten jeans
Laugh longer
Try harder

We take advantage of the miles of possibilities lining country roads and lighting up cities
Always expecting more of yourself and expecting less.

Struck down by the lighting rod of life
And burning from the inside out with unharvested potential.
Crumbling with the weight of our possibilities

And tumbling to the ground,
severed from our hopes and dreams.

Cutting off our influence
Shutting down the light in our world
And draining our surroundings of power.

Where we rot and wait for someone with a name tag and an antidote to prescribe us with a dose of energy.

Oh, how we chase our dreams into the ground

How we expect so much and accomplish so little.
How we fight for every breath to live out the ideal destiny dreamed up by society.

We run like telephone poles in the night.
Pulsing with energy and trying our best to light up the world.

It's the feeling you get
When the weight of the world is crashing down on you.

When suddenly the air is stolen from your lungs
And your heart is coughed up, still beating but crying out in pain.

It's when your gasps for breath take in the fogginess of your brain
and being sliced through with a blade of steel would cause less pain.

It's when
     your heart breaks.

The world stops breathing
You stop listening to its beat, beat, beating.
Because there is no way in this moment that people are smiling, or happy, or complete.

It's that moment of absolute silence,
when the ticking of the clock and your heart stop beating in tandem.
And you want desperately to grab onto the hands of time. Grip onto the hands of your lost lover.
And turn back time.
And relive every happy moment.
       Again and again.

It's when you're in a concrete castle.
Completely aware of the people around you,
but unwilling to reach out for help.

Completely isolated and confined
Wanting and waiting and hoping and dreaming for that moment when the concrete castle crumbles
People come to comfort you,
the hands on the clock start turning forward
your heart stops screaming,
and you can breathe in life again.

On an island
   in the sea
      is where you will find me

All alone
  with no one to hold
       is how I will be

Always searching
    but never finding
         that person inside of me

That will
    love less
          but be more

of that someone
    people are trying
         to find in me

Never seeing
   but always searching
       for what makes me complete

Because making those around me happy
   is how happiness
       will find me.